


I Was Found

by mimosaeyes



Series: somewhere only we know [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Chronic Pain, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I just want to give them the happy ending they deserve but won't get, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Married Life, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Poetry, Post-Canon Fix-It, and I think a cat goes a long way toward that end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:07:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24753694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimosaeyes/pseuds/mimosaeyes
Summary: The coat lets out a small, high-pitched chirrup. Martin blinks. “Jon,” he says slowly, “do you have a bird wrapped up in there?”Or: having saved the world and built a life together, Jon and Martin adopt a cat.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: somewhere only we know [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1854337
Comments: 67
Kudos: 450





	I Was Found

**Author's Note:**

> Dearest thanks to my supportive and eagle-eyed betas, [magpie_eater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie_eater) and [animaginaryquill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/animaginaryquill).
> 
> Title from Carry On by fun.

The alarm goes off on Martin’s phone, and he bends to peer through the tinted glass of the oven door. Another ten minutes, he figures, frowning slightly at the time. Jon ends earlier on Fridays; he should have been home a while ago.

Maybe he’s had to stay late at work. Not that it _is_ very late — the earlier sunsets as winter approaches always trick him. Not that Jon’s job generally requires much overtime, either, at least not without warning. He’d specifically looked for something boring and stable that paid reasonably well. No supernatural artefacts around the office, no task more frightful than reorganising data in a spreadsheet. A boss who achieves only normal levels of dickishness.

Jon seems content enough, but part of Martin wishes he would find work he really cared about. Before they were moved to the Archives, when they were just normal Institute employees, Martin had already noticed Jon a couple of times. He was so unassuming then, unburdened. He once spent fifteen minutes in a largely one-sided debate with Rosie, over which citation style best suited their field. Earnest and nerdy, he’d been blissfully unaware of both Rosie’s polite disinterest, and Martin’s presence in a far corner of the break room.

Later on, of course, academic curiosity had given way under the force of eldritch plots. Martin still thinks the researcher’s life might suit Jon. There’s a look he gets when they go on dates at the Natural History Museum or the Tate Modern. Martin sometimes spends less time admiring the new exhibition than he does memorising the way Jon’s face lights up as he explores, occasionally tugging on Martin’s sleeve to get him to look at something.

The sound of jangling keys snaps him out of his reverie. 

Martin reaches the front door just as it swings open to reveal a thoroughly dishevelled Jon. It’s nippy out, yet he’s taken off his coat and is carrying it in a bundle. He’s perspired a bit through his nice work shirt, his shoulder bag is swinging wildly from one elbow, and his hair is a mess, alternately clinging to his forehead or sticking up in frizzy cowlicks.

“What happened?!” Martin exclaims, as he goes to take the bag from Jon. 

Oddly, rather than move to allow this, Jon keeps clutching his coat with both hands. “Ah,” he says, in that distinctly shifty tone of voice he uses when he’s trying to surprise Martin with a nice new poetry collection or something. “Well, you see...”

That’s as far as he gets before his coat lets out a small, high-pitched chirrup.

Martin blinks. “Jon,” he says slowly, “do you have a bird wrapped up in there?”

“Not exactly.” With a furtive, almost guilty look, Jon edges past him to the counter, where he unfolds his bundle and lifts something out of it. Martin’s view is obscured until Jon turns around again, holding a fluffy, slightly scruffy-looking cat.

Its fur is white with splotches of black and orange. It must be a stray; it has that wariness, Martin thinks, like it’s ready to bolt at the first sign of ill intent. Yet it appears relaxed in Jon’s arms, staring placidly at its new surroundings for a moment before looking up at Jon and making that sound again, a sort of _mrrp_.

There’s no other word for it: Jon melts. “Aww, it’s okay,” he soothes, snuggling the cat closer to his chest and eliciting a slightly indignant squeak. Then he looks back up at Martin, his expression a mix of hopeful and helpless. “I found her after I left the office. It was cold out, and look at her, she’s so skinny! I _had_ to, Martin.”

Martin cants his head, watching Jon for a moment in what he suspects is an entirely too endeared and indulgent way. He should not be condoning this behaviour. “Are you telling me you walked all that way, carrying a cat in your coat?”

“No,” Jon says. “She walked along beside me until I noticed she was shivering.”

A laugh escapes Martin; he can’t help it. “You ridiculous man, I love you.”

Even now, when he must’ve said it thousands of times before, the words make Jon duck his head and smile. Which is a little confusing in this instance, as he attempts to simultaneously look offended at being called ridiculous. “Well, I couldn’t take her on the Tube. What if all the noise freaked her out?”

Martin just shakes his head. “Go wash up. Dinner’s almost ready.”

“But what about—”

Martin rolls his eyes. “Leave the cat.”

“Right.” Flustered, Jon sets her back down on the counter. He pats her head absently before disappearing into their bedroom.

The cat stares at Martin for several seconds, long enough for him to notice that one of her eyes is clouded over. A cataract, maybe? Then she abruptly loses interest in him, and settles herself in the folds of Jon’s coat, where she begins purring. 

Alright, he can concede that that’s quite cute. “Hungry?” Martin asks quietly, as he crouches to retrieve a small container of cat food from a low cupboard. It’s left over from when they’d looked after the Admiral while Georgie and Melanie went on their honeymoon. Martin shakes some kibbles onto one of their own plates, pours some water in a bowl, and puts both dishes down in front of the cat.

He watches thoughtfully as she begins to eat. This cat had let Jon swaddle and carry her, and she barely hesitated before trusting the food he’s offered her. She doesn’t have a collar, but maybe she hasn’t been on the streets for long — she seems used to humans.

After polishing off half the plate and lapping eagerly at the water, the cat looks up and meows at Martin. Well, _meow_ doesn’t really describe the sound. Once again, it’s somewhere between a bleat and a bird call.

“I don’t think that’s what cats sound like,” Martin points out helpfully. The cat just does it again.

Cautiously, he extends his hand to her. She sniffs at it for a couple of seconds. When she doesn’t back away, he begins scritching under her chin. The purring intensifies, and she angles her head, closing her eyes in an _ahh-that’s-the-spot_ sort of way.

“Nice to meet you too,” he murmurs.

Jon emerges from their bedroom then, having changed into a fuzzy old jumper and some sweatpants. He looks softly vague, tired. “I see she already likes you better,” he says.

Martin pretends to consider this. “Well, I did provide sustenance and affection.”

“Bribery’s cheating,” Jon protests, leaning up on his tippy-toes to kiss Martin’s cheek. He moves shyly, hesitantly, even though he does this just about every time he gets home. “How was your day?”

“Pretty boring, up until my husband _kidnapped a cat_ ,” Martin teases, looping an arm around him. “Or, cat-napped, I guess?”

“It’s just for tonight,” Jon says, resolute.

Apparently affronted that Martin has stopped paying attention to her in favour of Jon, the cat swishes her tail and returns to her water dish. It’s remarkable how huffy she makes this look.

“Hey, do we still have any of those treats?” Jon muses. “The really nice ones, with salmon in.”

  
  
  
  
  


Here’s the thing: Jon knows how this goes, okay? He’s not going to be that predictable. Really.

It’s no secret that he loves cats. The way they tuck their legs under their bodies when they sit, so they look like little loaves of bread. Or how peaceful they look while napping, sometimes sprawled out in amusing poses, sometimes making him raise an eyebrow because no vertebrate should be able to comfortably bend like that. Jon loves their natural grace, their occasional goofs, their cute, fluffy faces, their little toe beans...

There’s a couple of strays that like to hang around Martin’s university, not so much begging passing students for food as ignoring them until they bring some. (It’s a surprisingly effective strategy.) When Martin has an evening class, they sometimes agree to meet up at one of the cafés on campus for dinner. Instead, Martin often finds Jon crouched on the green, watching a cat meticulously groom itself.

Jon is pretty sure that Martin isn’t staunchly a dog person. He seems to like anything cute and cuddly. Penguins at the zoo, those quokka selfies that were briefly a trend — even tarantulas, for goodness’ sake. Surely someone who can see the appeal in the fur on large spiders isn’t going to object to cats. 

To sum it up, though: between the two of them, Jon’s the one who follows the Admiral’s Instagram account. Which he isn’t embarrassed to admit. His life changed the day Georgie stole his phone and forcibly downloaded the app for him.

But again: this is not happening. They do not have a cat; they simply have a house guest.

Determined, in the morning Jon looks up hotlines for local animal rescue centres. He answers the same few questions: no, she doesn’t seem to be feral, but there’s no collar either; he can see the eartipping, which means she’s been neutered; perhaps a bit undernourished. Yes, he’d be glad to send a picture later, but if any owners came looking, he’d describe her as a calico, therefore most likely female (a fact which had fascinated Martin when Jon had explained over dinner), friendly, possibly blind in one eye.

Several kindly but harried receptionists tell him the shelters are all nearly full up, and hint what a great help it would be if he could bring the cat to his nearest vet to scan for a microchip and get her a basic health checkup. Jon hangs up on the last place, sure that he’s never made so many phone calls at once in his life.

Then he dials Daisy’s number to ask if he can borrow her car.

She laughs at him, promises to drive over later, then laughs at him some more. Eventually Jon hangs up, though not before sitting back for a while and marvelling that it’s no longer rare for him to hear his friend sound so light and happy.

He finds the cat still curled up on his coat, which he’d left near, though not dangerously close to, the radiator last night. She’s sound asleep, clearly enjoying the warmth. The sight fills his chest with a wave of tenderness. 

Even though it makes his leg twinge a bit — his long walk yesterday is causing the old worm injuries to act up — Jon gets down on his elbows and knees to snap a photo. He uses the zoom function on his phone camera so that he can give the cat a wide berth. Last night, she had seemed approachable enough, but she had also needed his help at the time. He doesn’t want to push his luck now, and give her reason not to trust him. 

Also... he’s not familiar enough with how glaucomas look in cats to be able to tell if that’s what’s wrong with her eye, or if someone had blinded her at one point. A former owner? A random passerby? Accidentally, or maliciously?

The more scenarios Jon thinks of, the more he finds himself feeling protective of the little calico. And not just because he knows that a cat who looks like she does will have a harder time getting adopted out of the shelters.

Just then, she yawns and stretches, and Jon finds himself snapping a few more photos. For documentation purposes, naturally. Maybe her previous human would identify her by her sharp little teeth, or her long pink tongue.

It is around this point that Martin pipes up from across the room, announcing in hushed, dramatic tones, “And so it begins.”

Everyone seems to be making fun of him today.

“It’s for the shelters. In case she ran away or something,” Jon says, in defence of himself.

Martin nods sagely. “So your plan is to send each one a slightly different angle, cover your bases? Very thorough of you.”

Sometimes, Jon has no idea how he ever thought Martin was meek and generally a pushover. He stands, shielding his phone screen with one hand in vain hopes of hiding the media gallery with its many duplicates of pretty much the same image, taken split-seconds apart. 

He knows Martin will notice his lack of a comeback, but he changes the subject anyway. “Daisy’s driving over in the afternoon. We’re going to take, uh,” he flounders over what to call the cat, “my new acquaintance to get scanned for a microchip.”

“I’ll come along,” Martin offers at once. Then he hesitates. “I just need to read through my portfolio once more.”

“Because you might find a typo you missed the first seven hundred times?” Jon’s barely exaggerating. He’d been present for quite a number of those editing and proofreading rounds.

Martin tugs at his pyjama sleeves. “Well, I want to get the order of poems just right.”

At once, Jon regrets even briefly teasing him. “I know,” he says, touching his arm. “But I also know your application is already — it’s perfect, basically. They’re not going to believe what they’re reading. Absolute, inspired genius, they’ll say, and they’ll have to tell the Writer-in-Residence, ‘Sorry, but we’ve found someone better to lead the weekly seminars and the Lake District workshop. Ta.’”

By the time he’s even halfway through this spiel, Martin starts biting his lip to keep from laughing. “You’re too biased,” he objects. “You’re obligated to like my writing.”

“Not at all. I absolutely hate ‘Phoenix’.”

“That’s because it’s about you!” Martin splutters. “In a flattering light.”

“In an unforgivably rose-tinted light, maybe,” Jon says dubiously. He looks down at his coat, where the cat has resumed sleeping. “Wouldn’t you say?” he asks her. “Back me up here.”

He waits, but she doesn’t even stir. The most she does is flick her ear, which is probably coincidental but does strengthen the impression that, while she’s enjoying a nap, Jon ranks somewhere near the level of a pesky fly in her priorities.

“I think that means I win,” Martin crows.

Jon shrugs. That seems fair.

  
  
  
  
  


“Oh, wow.”

“What the— Daisy!” Jon nearly falls off his chair in surprise. “Where did you come from? How’d you get in?”

From the sofa, where he’s been settled since late morning, Martin calls out, “Hi, Daisy.” He doesn’t even look up.

Admittedly, Jon should be used to this by now, too. Daisy never rings the doorbell or knocks. She simply materialises without warning in their apartment, and takes some pleasure in making Jon jump when she deigns to announce herself. This time, though, her attention is focused on the cat currently kneading Jon’s coat, claws rhythmically snagging on the fabric and making miniscule holes in it.

“Knew you’d be whipped already,” Daisy remarks. 

She plonks a pet carrier down on the floor next to him. “Here. Compliments of Georgie. Well, not exactly.”

Jon blinks. “Are you telling me you broke into her flat too?”

“I would never do that.” She cuffs Jon’s head in a gesture that reminds him of that mother wolf keeping her pups in line, in a documentary Martin had insisted on watching one night. (Okay, yes, it was kind of cute in the end.) “Georgie says she can’t believe you didn’t tell her first, and she’s not going to talk to you until you send pictures of your new friend.”

Spluttering, Jon protests, “I wasn’t going to make it a whole thing! We’re taking her to a shelter straight after.”

It takes him a couple seconds to get past the scepticism on Daisy’s face, and notice the smugness. Then he groans. “I am not _whipped_.”

Daisy glances at Martin, who shrugs and says, “Well...”

Jon flushes. “Let’s just get her in the carrier.”

Of course, the moment all three humans in the apartment are focused on this task, the cat senses the change in atmosphere. She tenses and bends low to the ground, watching warily as Jon approaches with the carrier in hand.

He finds himself producing a stream of soothing noises, little reassurances that hadn’t been necessary when he first encountered her yesterday. Now, as soon as he gets remotely close, she darts away, eluding Martin and Daisy as well. She keeps skirting the walls and dodging around furniture. 

It starts out funny, but after a couple minutes gets exasperating and — for Jon at least — almost shameful. The cat doesn’t know they’re trying to help. She’s just frightened.

While he’s standing there paralysed by this thought, Daisy finally growls out loud in frustration. The sound makes everyone freeze, and that’s when Daisy swoops in and grasps the rather cowed-looking cat firmly by the scruff of her neck. Martin grabs the carrier from Jon and helps Daisy secure their quarry.

Then he sets the carrier down and covers his mouth with both hands. “Oh gosh,” he says, his voice muffled. “That felt terrible.”

“We’re so sorry,” Jon adds. “It’s for your own good!”

The calico only hisses at them.

Jon spends half the car ride to the vet apologising some more, until Daisy threatens to give Georgie an exhaustive account of how wrapped around this cat’s metaphorical little finger he is. Then he spends the second half of the journey casting silent, wretched looks at the carrier while Martin attempts to make amends by offering more treats.

If the cat feels betrayed by them, though, it’s eclipsed by her unease at the strange motion of the vehicle, and the unfamiliar road noise. She crouches low and defensive in the carrier, crinkling the newspaper lining that Georgie had helpfully put in.

Her distress ends up distracting Jon so much that he barely hears most of their consultation, and Martin has to nudge him to get his attention. “What was that?” Jon asks, suspecting that the vet has already had to repeat himself at least once.

“There’s no chip, Mr. Blackwood-Sims. Looks like you’ve found a healthy little stray.”

The vet goes on to detail a nutritional plan, and instructions on how to clean some of the dirt off the cat properly. He speculates briefly on how she was blinded in one eye, but says it doesn’t seem like it really bothers her anymore. Jon hears it all at some distance. He remains stuck on those two words: no chip. And they hadn’t seen a collar, either. Maybe the cat once had a human home, but not anymore.

After the dread of the clinic, she’s actually quite willing to slink back into the carrier. Jon picks her up gently, and lets himself be ushered back out into the waiting room.

Jon wants to turn to Martin and ask _Can we keep her?_ He can hear the words, he can imagine himself uttering them... but he doesn’t. Because, sure, they’ve been married for more than a year now, and Jon hasn’t been able to imagine a life without Martin since forever, but that doesn’t mean he can just bring home a cat out of the blue and expect Martin to agree to look after her. A pet is a huge commitment.

The other thing is that even if their lives are much more stable now, there’s a part of Jon that’s still afraid it’s too good to be true, and it’ll all be snatched away from him somehow. As they settle into a corner of the reception area — Daisy opting to wait outside in the car, as some of the dogs whimper when she looks at them — Jon places the carrier on the floor, then reaches for Martin’s hand.

Martin gives him a little smile, intertwining their fingers atop his knee. The look on his face is so familiar to Jon. It’s peaceful in an absentminded, thoughtful way. He gets it whenever he’s engrossed in a really good book. Jon loves it, loves watching his brow furrow unconsciously as he reads, his lips sometimes forming the shapes of the words as he relishes their cadence. “Listen to this,” Martin had said once, clearing his throat and propping open his copy of _To the Lighthouse_. Given his old one-book-per-author rule, Jon had only ever sampled _Mrs. Dalloway_ by Virginia Woolf. So he lay back and let Martin read to him about Lily Briscoe the painter wanting to tell Mrs. Ramsay, “ _I’m in love with this all._ ” 

Every once in a while, around Martin, Jon finds himself thinking of that line.

From the carrier at his feet, Jon hears a tiny mewl. He leans forward to peer through the door. The cat is staring up at him with wide, confused eyes. “We’ll be back home soon, I promise,” he reassures her, then catches himself. “I mean, we’ll get out of here soon.” He eyes a large poodle on the other side of the room distrustfully, even though it has done exactly nothing to warrant his suspicion.

As he leans back in his seat, Martin clears his throat. “So. I have to ask.”

Jon tenses, bracing without knowing what for.

Then Martin turns to him, smiling, and says, “What shall we call her?”

  
  
  
  
  


If Martin’s being honest with himself, he has no idea what cat ownership entails in the long term. But he likes the friendly little calico well enough, and there’s an appealing serendipity to how Jon had come across her and instantly earned her trust. Not to mention the way Jon’s face lights up when he sees her. That alone is, frankly, enough to convince him. 

So here they are in the pet section of the nearest grocery store, shopping for cat stuff.

“What about the Captain?”

And also trying to pick a name.

Martin wrinkles his nose as he contemplates what seems like a rather limited range of kibble. “Bit derivative, isn’t it? I don’t think Georgie would appreciate you getting your own Admiral.”

Jon gives him an appalled look. “I wasn’t even thinking of that! I meant, you know, because of her blind eye. She’s like a pirate captain.”

“Arr?” Martin says, picking up a mouse-shaped toy and jabbing Jon with it as if it were a sword. He regrets this immediately when Jon gasps and insists they buy it.

“You’re going to spoil little... Patch,” Martin tries out. “Like an eye-patch, get it?”

Jon takes the toy from him and adds it to their basket. “That’s so plebeian,” he complains. “She deserves something more special than ‘Patch’.”

Every so often, Jon’s voice regains the arch, stuffy tones it used to have, when he first became Head Archivist and was trying to sound authoritative. Granted, it had kind of worked on Martin — as well as worked _for_ him. Now that he knows it’s all affectation, he mostly finds it endearing. 

“You just like names that are titles,” Martin teases. They browse the cans of wet food for a while, reading ingredient lists to each other in increasing perplexity until Jon finally stops to text Georgie for advice. He has to send photos of their still-unnamed cat, as Daisy had mentioned, but once he does, and once Georgie is finished doing the text message equivalent of cooing, she says she’ll think about it and get back to them in a moment.

While they wait for a response, Martin consults his mental list of groceries they’re low on, and they drift over into the next aisle by tacit agreement. It’s full of cake premixes and other baking supplies.

“Well, what kinds of names do _you_ like?” Jon asks.

They’ve moved into the earshot of a fellow shopper, a middle-aged woman contemplating a jar of molasses. She flashes them a quick smile, which Martin returns politely before bending to search the shelves for their usual brand of brown sugar. 

“Well, on the one-eye theme, ‘Mike’ might be funny.”

In his peripheral vision, he notices the lady do a double-take at the phrase _one-eye theme_. It suddenly occurs to Martin that from her perspective, they could very easily be debating baby names.

Jon is taken aback too, but at a different part of the sentence. “First of all,” he says, “there are too many Michael’s about. Secondly: is this some reference I’m not getting again?”

Martin wants to stop and clarify this conversation for the woman, lest she think they’re a horrid couple adopting a child together and deliberately brainstorming names that make fun of the fact that he’s somehow lost an eye. But speaking to her would mean acknowledging that he’s noticed her inadvertently eavesdropping on their innocuous conversation, and that’s just too much for his social awkwardness.

So instead, he starts explaining _Monsters, Inc._ to Jon. He does it badly, as he’s conscious all the while of how her eyebrows are slowly rising and disappearing beneath her fringe. “Mike is like a Cyclops, see, with just one big eye. Only he’s small and green.”

“You’re saying he’s a little green monster? Mike is Jealousy?”

“Uh, well, he’s sort of envious? About his co-workers being scarier than he is? But no, he doesn’t—” 

Martin cuts himself off as he realises where Jon’s confusion is stemming from. “Oh! It’s not like _Inside Out_.” That had been one of the first items on the pop culture watching list he had made for Jon. It’s evidently left something of an impression on him. “Sorry, I didn’t mention the context... They work in this energy factory, sort of?”

“Is Mike green because he’s radioactive? I don’t understand.”

Smiling now, in a puzzled and slightly alarmed way, the woman puts her jar of molasses in her trolley and leaves the aisle. Her whole demeanour and body language says, _Okay, that’s enough of those weirdos._

“Tell you what,” Martin says, stifling laughter at her reaction, “we’ll watch the movie tonight.”

“Okay,” Jon agrees. “But, ‘Mike’? Really? I didn’t have you pegged for liking cats to have human names.”

Oh, if only he’d seen fit to say that literally any time in the last minute or so.

“I don’t,” Martin confesses. “I just thought the reference would be funny. Though in retrospect, it seems a little mean-spirited. What I do like,” he says, picking up a small sack of sugar triumphantly, “is cute food names.”

Jon points at the shelf that’s at eye-level for him. “Please don’t name her Pancake.”

“She doesn’t _look_ like a Pancake.” Martin pictures the cat’s little orange patches. “She could be a Cheesecake, maybe.”

“Hmm.” Jon doesn’t sound like he entirely concurs. It _is_ a bit of a stretch, Martin admits. They move a little farther along the aisle in companionable silence.

Then, out of nowhere, Jon blurts out, “What about ‘Crumpet’?”

Martin gapes. “How is _that_ any better than ‘Pancake’?”

“It’s more dignified.” Jon’s tone is a curious mix of defensive, and sceptical of his own reasoning. Which, Martin agrees, makes no sense whatsoever. 

But he loves what it says about how Jon’s mind works. “Crumpet,” he repeats slowly. “Huh. It kind of has a ring to it.”

As if on cue, Jon’s phone dings with a reply from Georgie, recommending several mid-range brands to try out, which are apparently healthier. She also tells them what kind of wet food the Admiral eats exclusively, but advises buying that only if their cat also turns out to be fussy.

None of the brands she’s named are available here; they’ll have to make a trip to a specialised pet store. So, carrying mainly groceries they hadn’t even intended on buying today, they head home again.

Martin’s not sure which one of them calls Crumpet by her new name first. Judging from the way she peeks at them from over the sofa cushions and makes her curious non-meow sounds, though, she seems to like it.

  
  
  
  
  


They don’t usually eat meat — courtesy of all the Flesh statements they used to read — but white meat is marginally better than red, and there had been some lovely mullet on sale at the store, so they steam fish for dinner. There’s peas and potatoes on the side, but Crumpet is clearly only interested in one thing on their plates. 

Martin watches as Jon carefully extricates a flake of fish, checks it for small bones, and offers it to Crumpet. She sniffs at it, but stops after just one lick.

“Maybe it’s too hot for her,” Martin says, by way of discouragement. It’s only been a day since Crumpet came into their lives; it seems a little early for her to get used to perching on the table and demanding to share their meals.

Jon hesitates for the barest second, then begins to blow lightly on the sliver of fish, cooling it until Crumpet can delicately eat it off his fork. 

Martin covers his smile with his hand, deciding then and there to tattle on him to Daisy and Georgie. And by extension, Basira and Melanie.

Afterwards, they snuggle on the couch and start _Monsters, Inc._ playing. A few minutes in, Crumpet climbs onto Martin’s lap, settling placidly there and appearing oblivious to Jon’s spluttering noises. “Favouritism!” he accuses her, ruining the effect entirely with his abidingly fond tone. “We could still call you ‘The Great Wazowski’ or something, you know. It’s not too late. In fact, you should thank me. I’m the reason you’re Crumpet and not Mike.”

As he says all this, he’s leaning against Martin’s shoulder. The slight pressure of him is not unlike that of Crumpet’s weight.

Martin settles deeper into the sofa with a contented sigh.

Jon laughs in all the right places but grows overall quieter over the course of the movie. By the time it ends, with laughter and love winning the day, he’s fully nestled against Martin.

“Good choice?” Martin asks softly.

“Very,” Jon says.

  
  
  
  


Sunday passes in a blur of pet logistics: buying things they need, like a scratch-post and a cat bed, setting up two kitty litter trays in obvious spots where they’re still out of the way and won’t need to be moved when they do the vacuum-cleaning. At some point — rather belatedly — they also dig up the lease they’d signed, and discover to their relief that their apartment block does, in fact, allow pets.

Crumpet’s food gets its own, dedicated cupboard space, and they compare schedules for the week ahead to see who will feed her and change her water each day. Come Monday, Jon finishes work and pauses at the spot where he first saw Crumpet. It’s pretty surreal. So much seems to have changed in such a short time.

As he quietly opens the front door to their apartment, he catches Martin mid-sentence. “—just do it, right? Get it over with.”

Jon takes in the scene: Martin sitting at the kitchen table, his laptop in front of him, his finger hovering over the trackpad, Crumpet off to one side watching him unblinkingly while her tail curls a little over his arm. 

Ah. Today’s the deadline for submitting his portfolio.

“The cut-off is midnight,” Martin tells Crumpet. His chatty, half-serious tone reminds Jon of how he used to talk to the tape recorders that materialised around him. “And I don’t want to be worrying about this over dinner, so it’s pretty much now or never. Yes. That’s logical, isn’t it?”

But he still doesn’t move to click send on his email. Instead he lifts both hands entirely away from the keyboard, and rubs at his eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve never shown other people my poetry. What if it’s really rubbish? That’s years of my life, gone on this.”

Jon makes a soft, wounded noise at this point — he can’t bear to hear Martin so genuinely, nakedly doubtful of himself. Crumpet looks up at him, Martin follows her gaze, and then while they’re both momentarily distracted, Crumpet steps on the trackpad and Jon hears the _whoosh_ notification sound of an email being sent.

“Crumpet!” Martin exclaims, diving for the laptop even though it’s clearly too late. Jon finally moves from the threshold, wincing as his bad leg twinges a little. It shouldn’t still be bothering him, but it just gets like this sometimes. 

He sits in the chair next to Martin’s. Crumpet immediately attempts to headbutt his chin, so he starts scritching the area behind her ears while watching Martin’s face. “Well?” he says after a while, even though he can see the screen.

Martin sits back. “I guess... it’s in. For better or worse.”

Jon hums. “Probably saved you about five hours of agonising over it,” he says cautiously.

“I’m still going to agonise over this until they get back to me. _If_ they get back to me.”

Leaning forward, Jon kisses his cheek. “That’s why I said ‘five hours’. You have furlough until midnight at least. Tomorrow, you can start wringing your hands and complaining to me and sulking to Crumpet. You really don’t need to, but you can. We won’t mind.”

As if on cue, Crumpet suddenly nips at Jon’s hand, indicating that she’s had enough of the petting, thank you very much, and she can speak for herself when it comes to the prospect of letting Martin vent at her. She leaps off the table and goes off to find a nice sofa cushion to nap on. Jon knows he’s anthropomorphising, but her demeanour all but says to them, _My job here is done._

“Okay,” he amends, “ _I_ won’t mind.”

He hesitates for a moment, then says, “You know, the people judging your application aren’t the be-all, end-all authority on good poetry. It’s not an objective thing.”

“I know, I know,” Martin says. From the way he’s refusing to meet Jon’s gaze, he must have put together how much Jon had heard him saying to Crumpet.

“I like your poems,” Jon tries coaxingly. “ _You_ like your poems. Most of the time, anyway, when you’re not being silly and self-deprecating.”

That gets a smile out of Martin, though he’s still looking askance. “I take it you’re the expert on that?” he says mildly.

Jon decides to run with it. “Yes. It’s my niche, and I resent you stealing it.”

“I thought cozy jumpers were my niche, but you keep stealing them,” Martin counters.

“Lies and slander,” Jon says, fully aware that he has one of Martin’s jumpers folded up in his work bag as they speak. What? They’re just so soft and warm.

“Objective truth, and I have evidence.”

Jon waves a hand dismissively. “Semantics.”

“I’m the poet, I should be the one talking about semantics.”

“Aha!” Jon boops Martin’s nose, and sing-songs, “Just wanted to make you say it!”

Martin grouses about this all through dinner, and appears to entirely forget to fret about his application.

  
  
  
  
  


Over the next couple of weeks, as it turns out, he doesn’t have much mental bandwidth left over to worry about it with. It’s the end of his penultimate semester — completing his degree part-time puts him off from the full-time undergraduates’ schedule. He has too many essays to write, and presentations to prepare for.

In the moments when he surfaces from his studying haze, Martin makes several observations about Crumpet’s behaviour, and what he concludes is that Crumpet... is a bit weird. 

Unused to living somewhere with a pet around, Martin is at first hyper-aware of her movements. Sometimes he’ll be studying at the kitchen table until late, and suddenly he’ll feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He never understood the phrase before, but he gains a new appreciation for it now. Each time, when he turns around, he finds Crumpet lurking behind one leg of the coffee table, or poking her head out from the open doorway to the small study they’d converted their pantry into. Each time, her eyes — one cloudy and one piercingly clear — seem fixed on a point several feet beyond his head. 

It’s... unnerving, to say the least, even for people who have good reason to be desensitised to spooky happenings. Or perhaps they have good reason to be more suspicious, less dismissive? Who knows. 

Martin pretty much shrugs and lets Crumpet get on with it. Even when he’s practising for a presentation in the study one time, and is interrupted by a rhythmic thumping at the door. After watching it rattle for a while, Martin opens it, half-expecting Helen to burst through somehow. Instead, Crumpet tumbles backward, landing sprawled at his feet and wearing an indignant expression, as if to say, _Hey! I was leaning on that. It’s important to my grooming routine._

He laughs and tickles her until she bites his hand playfully and scurries away again.

Then, there’s the first time he witnesses what Jon later calls the “zoomies”.

Usually sedate, bleating politely when she wants to request a little more kibble, Crumpet goes absolutely wild after midnight one day. She scrambles from one end of the apartment to the other, running right into several chair legs and Martin’s ankle as she does. He yelps in surprise at the impact and instinctively lifts the lecture notes he’s been reviewing, vaguely afraid that she’s going to jump onto the table at any moment and trample all over them. Jon comes over to see what the commotion is, and just laughs when Martin immediately declares, “It wasn’t me!”

Cats, Jon explains while barely stifling a grin, may seem to sleep at all hours of day and night, but they’re actually crepuscular, which means they’re most active in the twilight hours.

When Crumpet is slightly less hyperactive, Jon works off the rest of her energy by baiting her with one of her toys: a feathery ball on a string, hanging from a stick. She chases and pounces and utterly distracts Martin from his studying. Which is a good thing, in the end; frankly, he’d been starting to feel a bit overwhelmed.

Jon is actually pretty great during this period. When he’s at home, he brings Martin cups of strong, black tea for caffeine, or chamomile with honey if he needs to wind down for the night. When he’s at work, he periodically texts Martin reminders to take a break. As often as not, these take the form of requests for photos of Crumpet to tide him through his boring work day. Martin then has to set down his highlighters and look for Crumpet, which often turns into cuddling or playing with her, which is very relaxing. He never thought of himself as a cat person before, but he can increasingly see the appeal.

Crumpet gets plumper over time. Not overweight, just a healthy average; Martin had looked carefully at the chart in the vet’s office. Her coat looks sleeker, especially when she permits one of them to groom her with a brush, instead of attempting to attack it.

While he’s busy with deadlines, Martin does only a couple of shifts at the puzzles and games shop where he holds a part-time job, and sometimes gets to have some very pleasant chats about jigsaws. (More often, D&D.) One day, he’s unpacking some new stock when he has a sudden thought and pauses with a collapsed cardboard box in hand. Crumpet has her own scratch-post, complete with a dangling ball to bat around. She has her own, soft cat bed, lined with something crinkly for her to have more fun making biscuits in. But she always returns to Jon’s coat, which he has apparently surrendered for her exclusive use. It’s covered in cat fur by now anyway; Martin is beginning to think it’s beyond the help of the strongest lint roller he could buy. Though Jon doesn’t seem to mind.

Martin folds the box, leans it against the cash register, and takes it with him when he closes up for the night. Does he feel slightly ridiculous, carrying it on the Tube and attracting many a stare? Yes.

Is it all worth it when he returns home and sets it up, only to have Crumpet immediately leap in? Also, very much, yes.

  
  
  
  
  


As soon as Martin’s hellish weeks are over — and after he gets a full night of restful sleep — the Admiral comes for a long-overdue visit. Georgie has been bugging Jon about it more or less incessantly, and now that Martin’s free, it’s finally happening.

Georgie arrives holding the Admiral in his carrier, at the sight of which Crumpet hisses and immediately disappears into the bedroom. “Oh no!” Georgie says. Then for Melanie’s benefit, she explains, “Kitty just ran off.”

Melanie has one hand in the crook of Georgie’s elbow, but removes it to reach for the doorframe and orient herself. “Maybe we could hide the carrier,” she suggests. “It’d fit under a blanket or something, in that far corner.” She raises her stick to point unerringly at the previously empty spot where they’ve since installed a litter box.

“We’ve moved some things around because of Crumpet’s new stuff,” Martin says. Melanie has great spatial awareness, but her mental map needs updating.

Before he can offer to show her around, though, Melanie asks, “Where’s Sims?”

Beside him, clearly startled, Jon pipes up. “Here. Uh, your two o’clock.”

Martin exchanges a quick look of alarm with Georgie. Their respective partners have mellowed out toward each other a lot over time, but this is still unusual. Georgie gives a fractional shrug.

“Ah. Lead on, then,” Melanie says, placing her hand on Jon’s shoulder, very nearly on the old stab wound she gave him.

“Okay?” Jon squeaks, and looks at Martin in a panic.

Melanie grins a little at his reaction. “First off, I _know_ you’re looking at your husband for help. Secondly, Martin is not going to help, because he knows as well as I do that if we leave you and Georgie alone with two cats, we’re never getting you back.”

“Touché,” Jon says after a moment. 

As he leads Melanie through their apartment, telling her quietly and precisely about what they’ve changed in the layout, Martin beckons Georgie over. “We’ll probably find Crumpet hiding under the bed.”

“Like a fluffy little bogeyman?” Georgie says. She falls silent as he flicks on the light in the bedroom, revealing a wary Crumpet watching them from just the spot Martin had said. Crumpet scoots farther back still when they appear in the doorway, and makes one of her strange _mrrp_ noises. 

“Oh, she’s a darling,” Georgie declares at once. “I love her.”

Introducing two cats is always tricky, so after weighing the pros and cons, they decide to leave the Admiral in the carrier in the bedroom, and watch from a distance. Martin makes enough tea for everyone, and Jon and Melanie join them at the counter after a while. Melanie uses a plain white mug with KING in Braille repeated all around its circumference. It helps her tell which drink is hers without having to ask someone else all the time. Also, in her own words, it’s badass. Georgie had custom-ordered two for her birthday last year: one for their own apartment, and one to stay in Martin’s and Jon’s, since Martin is compulsive about making tea even for a British man.

“Well?” Jon says hopefully. The doorway to the bedroom is just out of his line of sight.

Martin squints. “Oh!” he exclaims in a stage whisper. “Okay, Crumpet is investigating the evil vet box. She seems concerned about the Admiral.”

“Don’t you feel bad for him?” Georgie coos in Crumpet’s general direction. The Admiral, of course, has his favourite blanket in there with him, and is thoroughly mollified. “Sniff him. Doesn’t he smell like a friend?”

Melanie raises her mug like a flagon of beer. “I’m not drunk enough to listen to this,” she announces.

“You’re not drunk at all,” Georgie says. “If you were, you’d join in.”

The conscientious host in Martin makes him offer to open a bottle of wine, even though it’s really too early for that. This, as it turns out, is exactly the opening Melanie is looking for. “Nah,” she jokes, “Can’t, I’m afraid. I’m driving.”

Everyone laughs, even Jon after Melanie punches him in the arm and tells him to give her credit. Then they all shush each other, throwing glances in the direction of their meeting cats.

They chat for a while, catching each other up on major life developments. Out of the corner of his eye, Martin watches Crumpet’s body language change. She stops being wary and starts looking curious about the Admiral, whose distinctive meow Martin can make out a couple of times.

Eventually, moving slowly and non-threateningly, Georgie goes and picks up the Admiral’s carrier, brings it into the living room, and pops open the door. They all stand back and watch in silent fascination as the Admiral formally meets Crumpet. 

The two cats sniff each other, tails waving without swishing in the way that means they’re hostile. Martin is poised to jump in the moment things go awry, and he can tell Georgie is too. But Crumpet merely bats a halfhearted paw in the Admiral’s direction, and then they just sit some distance apart, mostly uninterested in each other’s presence.

Jon lowers his phone; he’s been filming the entire thing with one hand clapped over his mouth, like a proud parent recording a child’s greatest achievement to date. “Well, they don’t exactly get along famously, but hey. No claws or biting.” 

He drops down onto the sofa with a sigh, and Martin frowns. Georgie and Melanie probably can’t tell, but there was something a little pained about the sound. Martin knows Jon too well not to notice.

Before he can say anything about it, the Admiral leaps up onto Jon’s lap, loudly demanding attention. Jon laughs and obliges. “Oh, I missed you too.”

Crumpet’s back stiffens. This interloper seems pleasant enough, but Jon is _her_ human.

“Okay, okay,” Martin says, picking her up. But Crumpet just yowls — the first normal cat sound he has ever heard her make, so he takes her seriously. When he sets her down, she immediately jumps on the sofa beside Jon, hackles raised at the sight of the Admiral sitting placidly on him.

“She’s jealous,” Georgie observes. “Jon, can you manage?”

Jon is presently trying to keep two cats from making his lap a battleground. “Ah, a little help, please?”

Georgie’s the next one who tries to remove Crumpet, but she must still associate her with the carrier of doom, because she squirms out of her arms almost immediately.

She lands squarely at Melanie’s feet, one of her paws touching her big toe briefly before Crumpet moves again. “Hello,” Melanie says, and crouches. “I understand from Georgie that you are extremely adorable and have one blind eye, so we have something in common.”

Melanie extends a hand toward Crumpet, though she must be guessing where exactly she is. Then Crumpet meets her halfway, nudging her fingers eagerly. “Oh, you’re very soft,” Melanie praises. “You’re just lovely, aren’t you? Calm down there, it’s alright.”

Crumpet trills in satisfaction and refuses to leave Melanie’s side for the rest of the evening. Much to everyone’s relief, she’s apparently forgotten to be territorial about Jon.

The conversation over dinner is lively and only occasionally interrupted by one cat or another. There isn’t anything they can eat, but they still jump up on the table and want to be part of things. Crumpet continues to favour Melanie, so Jon pouts and laments in an exaggerated woe-is-me voice about how fickle her affections are. Over the course of the meal, though, he gets quieter and stiller, and Martin plays host more actively, standing to top up everyone’s water or offer a round of dessert — brownies he’d stress-baked one night while Jon tested him using some flashcards he’d made.

Eventually, with the Admiral coaxed back into the dreaded carrier and Crumpet once more hiding in the bedroom, they see Georgie and Melanie out. Martin closes the front door behind them, then quietly asks, “What hurts?”

It could be any number of things, see. Sometimes the burn on Jon’s hand aches, and Martin has to persuade him to let him apply a very light moisturiser, because even now, Jon hasn’t quite forgotten being held captive by Nikola Orsinov. Sometimes he sleeps in a weird position and wakes up with a bone-deep throbbing in the spot where he’s missing two ribs.

Instead of answering the question, Jon says, “I didn’t even _do_ anything today. It’s fine. It shouldn’t be hurting.”

He shuffles to the dining table and starts picking up plates. Martin stops him. “Jon. It doesn’t matter about _shouldn’t be_ , it _is_. We’ve talked about this.”

Jon frowns, hesitating. “But you’re always looking after me.”

“And you’ve spent the last two weeks picking up the slack with chores and groceries while I was stressed out. Come on. We take it in turns to look after each other.” Martin tilts Jon’s chin up with one finger. “Lay your weary flesh prison to rest?”

This makes Jon crack a smile, and concede. When he moves to sit on the sofa, Martin can see the limp. That’s the oldest injury, which Martin used to think meant it would bother Jon less, but he’s since realised that it’s also the injury Jon sustained while he was most human and least Archivist.

Martin washes up quickly, half-expecting Jon to wobble to his feet and stubbornly insist on drying the dishes. He doesn’t, though, and when Martin turns around, he discovers the cause. Jon is dozing on the sofa, lying mostly horizontal with Crumpet purring on top of him. She looks up at Martin with an expression he can only describe as self-satisfied. “Good girl,” Martin whispers. “So clever.”

He can’t resist. He snaps a quick photo for Georgie before bending to shake Jon gently awake.

“Mm?” Jon looks startled. “Sorry, I... I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“You must be tired.” Martin strokes a lock of hair out of his face. “Bed?”

Jon pets Crumpet’s head. “But I can’t just _move_ her,” he says, in hushed, appalled tones which imply that that would be a capital crime.

“I’ll do it, then,” Martin says, but when he tries to lift Crumpet, she digs her claws into Jon’s shirt. He hisses under his breath, though it’s more out of surprise than pain.

Martin bends again to address the cat. “If you sleep in our room tonight, on Jon if you like, do you promise not to wake us up at the crack of dawn because you want breakfast?”

She blinks slowly at him.

“That’s what cats do to say they love you,” Jon informs him.

“I love you too,” Martin tells Crumpet. “And I’ll take that as an agreement.” This time, when he bundles Crumpet up in his arms, she allows herself to be carried to the bedroom and placed atop the downy comforter.

Then he comes back to the sofa, bends down, and scoops Jon up in his arms.

“What— Martin!” Jon yelps.

Placidly, Martin takes a moment to adjust his grip. He’s got one arm against Jon’s back and one under his bent knees. Then he turns and starts walking to the bedroom.

Jon folds his arms over his chest, looking for all the world like a cross cat. “I am capable of walking, you know,” he says reproachfully. “You don’t have to treat me like some invalid, dying of consumption in the eighteenth century.”

“That’s very specific,” Martin teases. “Are you sure this isn’t a secret fantasy of yours? Oh, watch your head.” As they pass the threshold to their room, he turns sideways a little and cups one hand over Jon’s head just in case.

Martin had intended to deposit Jon on the bed right away, but Jon points out that he’d never work up the resolve to get up again to brush his teeth. So instead, he sets him down on his feet and trails him into the en suite, resisting the urge to offer more help.

Crumpet is absorbed in making biscuits on Jon’s pillow and barely spares them a glance, although Jon murmurs a quiet greeting to her, which in turn elicits a smile from Martin.

Jon ends up sort of leaning, sort of sagging against him as they stand at the sink together. It’s unclear how much he really needs the support, and how much is just him being affectionate in his tactile way. In any case, he’s letting Martin see him vulnerable, and Martin knows what a precious and rare thing that still is for Jon.

Martin usually keeps a book or two by his bedside, which he reads while winding down for the night. Never his set texts or academic articles, of course; that’s hardly relaxing. He gets recommendations from Basira, whose tastes are so wide they might be called indiscriminate, but whose taste, he finds, is impeccable. Sometimes he reads aloud to Jon — to help him fall asleep, or to calm him down when he’s woken up wild-eyed and frantic from a nightmare, and can’t quite talk about it yet. ( _The Little Prince_ , Martin has realised, is very good for this.)

Tonight, of course, he ends up texting Georgie instead, gratified when she almost immediately responds to his photo with a series of exclamation marks and the heart-eyes emoji.

Crumpet has refused to vacate Jon’s pillow (not that Jon had tried very hard to persuade her), so he lies on the edge of it, burying his face in Martin’s side. Martin assumes he’s fallen asleep again, he’s so still, but then Jon shifts and looks up at him. When he speaks, his voice is muzzy, contented. “Melanie seems happy, doesn’t she? I’m glad for her.”

Martin hums in agreement without looking away from his text message chain with Georgie. She’s just remarking how happy Jon looked this evening. _You’re very good for him, you know?_

_same goes for you and melanie_ , Martin replies. _we were happy to have you over_

_Happy to eat your delicious brownies! Take care <3 and tell Jon not to work so hard _

“Georgie says you need to get more rest,” Martin paraphrases for Jon, switching off his phone and setting it on the nightstand. As soon as he pulls the covers over himself, Jon snuggles even closer to him

“You’re especially clingy tonight,” Martin teases. “Like a little koala.”

“You’re my favourite eucalyptus tree,” Jon mumbles, too drowsy to be deadpan. 

Then he shifts slightly and gives a low grunt of pain, and Martin sobers. Jon’s probably seeking comfort, not really knowing how to ask for it even now.

Before Martin can ask if he needs anything else, though, Jon says, “During dinner, when Georgie asked if I was still working the same boring job. Do you think she thought I should find something else?”

“Uhh. Honestly, I was tuning out a bit,” Martin admits. “Too worried about you.”

“Mm. Don’t fuss.”

“Believe me, I’m trying.” He tries to keep his tone neutral. “Well, do you want a different job?”

Jon peers at him from a slightly awkward angle. When he speaks, it sounds like a confession. “I’m not sure I’m ready. For work that... that means something to me, again.”

“You do that volunteer storytelling,” Martin points out. “What you do at work isn’t who you are.”

“I know that.” Jon smiles at him ruefully. “But it does take up an awful lot of time, so. It matters. I just mean — well. The last time I had a job I was passionate about, I literally became it, and the world literally ended.”

Martin plays with Jon’s fingers while he considers this. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“I did ask,” Jon says drily.

“I think you wouldn’t be bothered about Georgie saying that unless part of you agreed with her. And I _know_ you’re bored doing what you do now. I’m grateful that you’re sticking it out anyway while I finish my degree.”

Jon frowns. “But I chose a boring job on purpose.”

“Because you weren’t ready yet,” Martin agrees. “Maybe now, you’re starting to be. There’s no rush. But when you are, and when I’ve graduated, I hope you’re able to find something you really care about.”

He watches Jon’s face. Jon blinks slowly at him.

“Which is all I’m going to say on the matter,” Martin finishes, “because I don’t want to pressure you.” He lifts Jon’s hand and presses a kiss to it. “Whatever and whenever you do decide, I’ll support you.”

They sleep curled up facing each other that night, Crumpet a warm ball of fur purring contentedly between them.

  
  
  
  
  


The next morning, Jon wakes with a jolt to Martin yelling something that is, at first, incomprehensible to his sleep-addled brain. Crumpet slinks out of the room, probably to use her litter box and get as far away as she can from the crazy humans.

Jon grabs for Martin’s hands. “Slow down,” he says, laughing because he can at least tell that Martin’s mood is exuberant, not panicked or anything. “What is it?”

Martin holds up his phone, which is open to his inbox. “They accepted my application!”

A slow smile spreads across Jon’s face. “See?” he says, his voice still hoarse from having just woken up. “What’d I tell you? Absolute genius, and they know it. The new Keats — that’s what the K should stand for.”

“They gave some feedback,” Martin says, and reads aloud from the email, “‘We were especially impressed with “Phoenix”, which is rich, honest, and moving.’” He leans in close to Jon as he emphasises, “‘One of your best.’”

Jon scowls. “Shut up.”

Martin laughs and bends to kiss him. “I love you too.”

  
  
  
  
  


In the new year, Jon starts seeing a physical therapist. Martin insists, and frankly, his own body does too.

At first, he’s sceptical about the exercises his therapist instructs him to do at home, and he definitely hates how shaky he gets after an appointment. The work he needs to put in to feel better is itself exhausting. But it helps, very tangibly in fact.

So he goes to appointments, he goes to work, and whenever he’s at home, he plays with Crumpet and listens to Martin enthuse about the latest things they’re discussing in the weekly poetry seminars. Jon, frankly, can follow little of it after a while, especially when all the prefixes and suffixes come in, like _neo-_ and _-ism_. It’s been a bit too long since his time in university, and he was obviously never as passionate about poetry as Martin is. 

What he does know is that Martin’s happy, and that makes him sit through anything, even a fifteen-minute vent about a poem by Ezra Pound that’s only two lines and fourteen words but has had countless articles written about it.

“How does it go again?” Jon asks, several minutes into this tirade. Martin had only said it wholesale once at the start, pretty much as soon as Jon got home.

Martin consults his printout to be sure. It’s covered in annotations. “Okay, the title is ‘In a Station of the Metro’ and the lines are: ‘ _The apparition of these faces in the crowd:_ / _Petals on a wet, black bough._ ’”

Jon picks up Crumpet’s empty food dish and carefully steps around her to get to the sink, ignoring her piteous cries with some difficulty, and much making of apologetic faces. She’s just had her dinner. He knows it’s all crocodile tears.

He starts washing the dish. “So what I’m getting from all this is that Ezra Pound was an avatar of the Lonely.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Martin puts the sheet of paper down on the counter and bends down to pick up Crumpet’s water dish. Jon makes room for him at the sink so he can empty out the water and replace it. “Everyone in class was going around in circles, saying what a _dehumanising perspective_ that is, what a strange and _detached_ voice, and I had the perfect summary in my head but couldn’t say it.”

Jon sets the dish on the draining board, dries his hands, and turns so he can lean against the counter and look at Martin. “And it didn’t bother you? The poem, I mean.”

“Aside from the colour imagery being unavoidably racial, and Pound having been a bit of a douchebag in real life?” 

Jon gives him a look, and Martin grimaces faintly before answering his question properly. “A little. I... well. I’m not like that anymore, but...” He shrugs, at a loss for words.

He doesn’t have to finish his sentence. Jon knows just as well as he does that even now, when the entities are no longer a threat to them, leaving the Lonely isn’t a one-off thing. It’s a conscious choice Martin makes each day. 

“Alright,” he says softly. Then, drawing on the little he remembers from a class he’d taken on modernist women writers: “Wasn’t H.D. the better poet, anyway?”

Martin’s eyes light up. “Oh, yes. Just wait till you hear ‘Eurydice’.”

  
  
  
  
  


Jon knows it’s coming, but the week of the workshop still comes as a surprise somehow. He sees Martin off at the train station with the rest of his classmates. They’re all quite a bit younger than Martin, and make Jon feel extra old with his green sweater-vest and greying hair. Some are even accompanied by a harried parent who keeps running through last-minute packing lists. 

By contrast — if only due to self-consciousness — they don’t make much of a fuss. When it comes time to leave, they share a short kiss, and Jon clears his throat before gruffly saying, “Alright. Go... roll in those daffodils, already.”

Martin watches out the window until the station’s out of sight.

  
  
  
  
  


The Lake District is gorgeous. Martin’s never been before, although he’s always wanted to. They go on a quick walking tour their first day there, and that plus the train ride exhausts Martin so much that he fires off only a quick text to Jon before falling into bed. 

He’s up early again the next day for more poetry, and nature, and poetry about nature. He looks at ribbon lakes and flowers and rugged, distant mountains. He stares up at the clouds, hoping a skylark or two will grace him with their presence. It’s all very pastoral.

It’s also not quite everything he imagined. Before he knows it, they’re nearly halfway through the week, and Martin hasn’t written anything. They’ve held several readings and group critique sessions, but each time it gets to his turn, Martin stares down at his notebook, at the scrawled lines with many crossings-out and question marks, and says, “Oh, nothing solid yet. Think I’ll hold off for now.”

He’s never had any delusions about his writing. He’s gotten better, but he’s no poet laureate, no matter what hyperboles Jon might spout when he’s being supportive. Still, he can’t help but feel like although the Romantic poets’ emphasis on emotion has always appealed to him, their subject matter just isn’t his. Being here is great, but it’s London that he writes about; the urban environment and the people he knows and the way weeds poke out of the sidewalks. When he says as much, the teacher nods but writes something down on their notes with a frown they don’t quite manage to conceal by bending their head. 

So now he’s stuck as well as stressed.

He wants to talk to Jon. There, he admits it. They’ve been texting throughout the day, but usually that’s in addition to seeing each other at home every evening. It’s just not the same.

What if Jon’s busy, though? All week, he’s having to manage chores and Crumpet on his own. Plus, seeing as Martin’s work is part-time, it’s essentially Jon’s salary that’s paid for him to go wandering around some fields _not_ writing poems for a week. He knows, logically, that this shouldn’t matter — they’re married, and Jon’s made it clear that he supports Martin finishing his degree. But Martin grew up struggling to get enough money for himself and his mother, and he’ll always be conscious of where the income comes from. He can’t just call Jon and whine about not enjoying what amounts to a holiday.

He picks up and unlocks his phone anyway — only to realise that he’s actually missed a call from Jon. It was a couple of hours ago, when he’d been in class. Strange. Jon doesn’t generally call him. What would he need to say that he couldn’t just send in a text?

Martin sits down on the bed and checks his messages, but there’s no explanation forthcoming there from Jon. There is, however, a notification that he has an unheard voicemail. Huh. He dials the number and follows the instructions until the recording starts playing. 

At first, there’s only some indistinct rustling sounds over the line. Martin holds the phone away from his ear a moment to check how many bars of signal he has. Nope, that isn’t the issue.

Well, there’s a first time for everything. Really, given how technologically inept Jon can be, Martin should be surprised that he hasn’t butt-dialed him before.

He’s about to delete the voicemail when he hears Crumpet’s signature little trill. It softens something in him that he hadn’t realised had been growing frosty and brittle over the last few days. He turns up the volume, and suddenly can make out her low purring. Without meaning to, he starts smiling.

Then Jon’s muffled voice comes in. “Ah, guarding my phone, are you?”

Crumpet’s purring redoubles then. Martin pictures her sitting on Jon’s phone on the kitchen table, lifting her chin appreciatively as Jon begins scritching it. A faint scrape of chair legs on the floor tells Martin that Jon has pulled up a seat.

Martin seems to have been paw-dialed. Now, that’s a new one.

“We should get you chipped, you know,” Jon muses. “It’s been long enough that I don’t think anyone’s reported you missing. And you like it here with us, don’t you?”

_Mrrp_ , Crumpet responds after a pause.

“That’s fair,” Jon says, as seriously as if he were having an intelligible conversation with her. “I’d like Martin better too.”

Martin scoots over to lean against the headboard, brow furrowing at how low Jon’s voice goes at the end there.

“Do you miss him?” Jon asks Crumpet. Without waiting for a response, he continues, “I do. You know, I didn’t realise I would this much. I was worried if _he’d_ be lonely, but here I am, alone in my apartment, and I can’t talk to the one person I normally talk to, because he’s off enjoying himself, and I don’t want to ruin this week for him.”

He sighs noisily. “So instead, apparently, I’m talking to a cat — agh, ow!” 

There follows a series of discontented Crumpet sounds. Presumably she’s just nipped at Jon’s fingers; she gets like that sometimes when they cross the invisible line between enough scritches and too many. When Jon speaks again, he sounds appropriately chastened. “You’re right. I was being quite maudlin, and your company is much-appreciated, Miss Crumpet. Or, hmm. Princess Crumpet? Duchess?”

Martin can’t help rolling his eyes at that, though he does it with a fond smile. Thankfully, the voicemail reaches the time limit before he has to listen to much more crooning.

He checks his text messages again. There’s nothing new from Jon, no all-caps warning along the lines of _DO NOT PLAY THAT VOICEMAIL._ Though to be honest, that would probably guarantee that Martin would listen to it. That aside, it seems like Jon never noticed the outgoing call at all.

Martin sets his phone down and thinks for a while.

Then he takes his notebook out, and starts writing a poem.

  
  
  
  
  


_Beep._

“Oh! I wasn’t expecting to hear the tone so soon. Gosh, that’s a lot more stressful than a tape recorder. Kind of has that lo-fi charm going for it, though.

“Um. Okay. I should get to it. I hope you check your phone before you head to work, and listen to this first, before anyone else in the world. Because it’s, it’s for you.”

A quick breath in.

“Okay, here goes. ‘Anchor’, by Martin Blackwood-Sims...”

  
  
  
  
  


_Beep._

“Hmm. I never leave messages, normally. Do I just talk as if to you?”

“...I just paused for you to respond. Silly of me. I’m not really thinking clearly. I — I loved hearing your poem, Martin. I listened through it twice over breakfast. Almost ended up late to the office, and now I’ve been on a fake smoke break for ten minutes, collecting my thoughts.

“Thank you? Is that weird to say? I... needed to hear your voice, more than I knew. The timing couldn’t have been more on point. In a sense, at least. Why were you awake at 5am? I can’t believe _I_ get to say this, but: make sure you get enough sleep, Martin.

A long pause. “Wish you were back already. I miss you.”

  
  
  
  
  


_Beep._

“I have a confession to make. I timed this exactly for that morning meeting you always complain about. The one with the big boss who hates it when phones even vibrate on silent mode, so everyone has to switch theirs off entirely.

“It’s weird, but I think I prefer talking this way. I can play back your messages if I miss you and know you aren’t free right then.

“Oh. I let that slip out, didn’t I? I miss you too. I... This is the other reason I wanted to leave a message instead of calling or texting you. 

“So, um, the other night, you left me a voicemail. Or rather, Crumpet did on your behalf. I heard you say, um, basically that you didn’t want to be a downer while I was supposed to be enjoying myself this week.” A chuckle. “We’re ridiculous, aren’t we? Each missing the other person but assuming they’re too busy, or don’t want to be bothered. I... needed the reminder, I think. I think I was starting to—”

_Time limit reached._

_Beep._

“Okay, I admit, that last message _was_ a bit of a downer. Also, I didn’t get to say the other thing I planned to say, which is: why was I up writing till 5am? Maybe because my inner poet is crepuscular like a cat, and writes best near dawn and dusk. Maybe my inner poet _is_ a cat. Wouldn’t that be a twist? 

“Say hello to Crumpet for me. I miss her, too.”

  
  
  
  
  


_Beep._

“This is taking your retro aesthetic rather far, you know. I admire your commitment. I haven’t planned the timing at all, so I assume you saw me calling and purposely waited. You are ridiculous, and I love you.

“Here is Crumpet saying hello back.”

A low, contented purring. A single _mrrp_ and a squeak.

_Beep._

“I’m very embarrassed about what I think you heard. But I’m glad we broke that standoff. You’re right, we were both being silly — and where would we be without our cat? 

“On that note, would you say Crumpet’s rather Web-aligned? She submitted your portfolio, she called you for me, and this morning when I saw a spider and pointed at it, she refused to even bat a paw at it... Much to think about.”

  
  
  
  
  


_Beep._

“Stop trying to egg her on to kill the spiders in our flat while I’m away, Jon.”

  
  
  
  
  


_Beep._

“But you’re not here to save me from them. Crumpet doesn’t have opposable thumbs. She can’t trap spiders in a glass and carry them far, far away.

“Also, you’re off at poetry camp, yet I’m not hearing any more poems from you.”

  
  
  
  
  


_Beep._

“Here is a haiku. ‘Stop trying to egg / our cat on to kill spiders / while I’m away, Jon.’ I’m a lyrical genius. I will now pause for some pretentious finger-snapping.

“In all seriousness, though... I’ve written a lot more since we started leaving these voicemails. I feel a bit like a heroine in an epistolary novel from the eighteenth century, except without all the swooning and meeting you by moonlight for illicit amours. So, just the love letters bit, basically.”

  
  
  
  
  


_Beep._

“In light of the revelation that I am apparently supposed to be wooing you with my dulcet tones, I will now read Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, the best known of the Fair Youth poems, and in my authority as a former post-apocalyptic Google, irrefutable proof that the Bard was bisexual.

“Now. ‘ _Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate: / Rough winds do—_ Daisy! When did you get here?”

“Well, don’t stop on my account.”

“I was being _ironic_ , don’t—”

_Beep._

“Well, that was mortifying.”

  
  
  
  
  


_Beep._

“That was _adorable_ , and I will be expecting a full, uninterrupted reading when I get home. Which — heh. I’m coming home tomorrow. Can’t wait.”

  
  
  
  
  


_Ring. Ring._

“Martin!”

“Jon, where are you? There’s so many people here.”

Jon starts laughing, right there in the middle of the train station. “Sorry, I just... We haven’t been using phones properly in so long that it feels surreal to actually pick up a call from you. What would you have done if I’d just let it go to voicemail?”

“Record the part of the voicemail where you call Crumpet a duchess, and send it to everyone we know,” Martin answers without hesitation. It’s deadpan, it’s ruthless, and it makes Jon want to find him already and run right into his arms.

Then he spots him at last. The tuft of his hair as he towers over a sizable proportion of the crowd. The worn jumper he likes to wear when travelling. The shape of him, the way it makes Jon sigh and feel whole again.

“Oh! Never mind, just stay where you are. I see you,” he says. “I see you.”

  
  
  
  
  


The day Martin graduates, Jon proudly films his minute of glory when he goes up on stage to receive his degree. At home, he plays it back for Crumpet, who does not once glance at his phone screen.

Martin emerges from their bedroom after carefully stowing his rented gown and mortarboard. He looks flushed and tired all at once, and he’s hiding something behind his back. “I have a present for you,” he says, looking sort of sheepish.

“What? But it’s _your_ commencement.” Jon scrambles up from the sofa, startling Crumpet briefly. He pauses to pet her head in apology for his sudden movement.

Martin unclenches the hand he’d been hiding behind his back. He’s holding a flash drive. “This,” he says, “is your resumé.”

Jon stares. “Did you download this from the Institute computers?”

“No.” Martin smiles. “I made it up.”

Taken aback, Jon looks up sharply at him. “What?”

Martin tucks the flash drive into Jon’s hand, folding his fingers over it as he takes a deep breath. “You love knowing things. Actually, I’ll be more precise: you love _learning_ things. When you worked as an archivist — lowercase — you had a passion for knowledge. Now, you’ve enabled me to finish my degree, you’ve encouraged me to pursue poetry... and I say it’s your turn. I know I said before that I wouldn’t pressure you, but I _know_ there are better jobs for you out there than something boring and nondescript in an office. I see the way you light up in museums. I see the way you are with kids when you read to them. Go... be a curator, or a teacher; anything you like.”

Jon’s stomach feels like it’s dropped. “I... Well. You need experience to get those jobs, Martin. I can’t just waltz in and—”

“Why do you think _I_ did up _your_ resumé?” Martin counters. His lips curve into a mischievous grin. “There are several versions on this drive.”

Jon’s jaw drops. Literally.

Martin’s expression grows serious again. “I told you I would stand by anything you choose. I want you to be happy, Jon. I can work full-time now; we can both pick things we like.”

“I _am_ happy,” Jon blurts out, then realises the truth of it. “With you, I’m happier than I ever thought I’d get to be.”

Martin gives him a dopey look that Jon suspects matches his own face. “I am, too.” He pauses and glances down at Crumpet, who is currently grooming herself while sprawled across not one, not two, but three sofa cushions. Truly a feat. 

When he looks up at Jon again, there’s a different light in his eyes. “But if there’s one thing having a cat in my life has taught me, it’s... to keep wanting things. To know you can want things, even while you’re at peace with how they are.”

Jon’s eyebrow quirks up. “You got all that life advice from a little cat named Crumpet, huh?”

“Yes,” Martin says, halfway between resolutely pressing his point and playfully acknowledging how he sounds. “The cat mantra. Take naps. Enjoy food. Apply for jobs you aren’t qualified for.” He sort of sways forward and snags Jon’s arms. “Ask for love. Give and receive it.”

Jon’s breath catches in his throat. “What was that middle one again?” he says weakly. “Didn’t sound very cat-like to me.”

Martin just looks at him fondly. “You heard me.”

“Yes.” Jon smiles. “Yes, I did. I do.”

  
  
  
  
  


A little over a year since Jon first bundled Crumpet up in his coat, he comes home to find Martin sprawled on the ground, peering into the space under their sofa. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he’s cooing. “You can come on out.”

Jon sets down the groceries he’s just bought and begins putting them away. “What, did you have to move her off the laundry basket again?” Crumpet’s favourite nap spots often coincide with things they need access to. This does not preclude her getting upset when she has to be disturbed.

Martin looks at Jon guiltily, which is the only warning he gets before the sofa emits a long, low wail. If Jon pushes the bounds of his imagination, it could be a cat sound.

He crosses his arms over his chest, smiling and raising his eyebrows at Martin. “Something you want to tell me?”

“I found him outside that tiny bookstore I go to sometimes,” Martin says, apparently choosing to ignore how much Jon is enjoying how the tables have turned. “The shop owner told me he’s been there for weeks, begging for scraps when she’s out on her lunch breaks, but she’s allergic, and he looked so scared! He startles _really_ easily. He was fine with Crumpet earlier, but he’s clumsy, too; he knocked into the food dish and made himself jump, and then—”

Another wail, this one a bit like a hoarse bullfrog. Jon stares. Are they really about to have _two_ cats that don’t sound normal?

“—he sort of screams,” Martin finishes, shrugging then smiling up at Jon. “I thought maybe we could call him... Boo?”

There’s only one thing Jon can possibly do in response.

He kneels down so he’s on a level with the cat. He gets only a glimpse: stripey grey fur and a long tail, straight and thin. Like an exclamation mark — quite appropriate, honestly.

Martin starts making shushing sounds, comforting and gentle. The cat begins to inch forward, relaxing by degrees.

“Hey,” Jon says quietly. “Welcome to the family, Boo.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my longest fic to date, and was written while I've been… not in the best state of mind. I hope you've enjoyed reading it. [Here](https://mimosaeyes.tumblr.com/post/621095086510440448/title-i-was-found-summary-the-coat-lets-out-a)'s the tumblr post for it.


End file.
